


Masks We Wear

by unorigelnal (jayburding)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:35:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1955307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayburding/pseuds/unorigelnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Janecat's prompt: Dick getting terribly scarred/disfigured on a mission gone wrong? (maybe have someone to remind him he’s still him/attractive in their eyes?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masks We Wear

Everyone is tip toeing around him and he knows it. He catches them looking when they think they’re being subtle- the itch of morbid curiosity tracing over the wreck of his face is impossible to ignore. He would smile for them, to reassure them that he’s ok, but they flinch when he smiles, when the dragging left corner of his mouth won’t lift like it should, when the scar tissue twists his lips into a grimace no matter his intention.

It’s a lie anyway, one that comforts no one. He isn’t ok, and they know it.

He’s been benched, and it is an unspoken fact that Dick will never get off the bench again if Bruce has anything to say about it. The argument sounds good to the rest of them- how does a half deaf man with one eye and a crippled leg run patrol anyway- but Dick only hears how much he’s failed. Which is why the leg brace comes out of storage, and a newly masked Nightwing is spotted on the rooftops of Blüdhaven after a two month absence.

Batman is less than happy to see him.

“We agreed that you would not patrol for the time being,” Batman growls at him when he catches up to Nightwing two hours into patrol. Nightwing’s putting a lot of effort into making it seem like he’s perched on a roof waiting for Batman to catch up to him, rather than his leg is already giving out despite the brace. Rather than the remains of his face is aching so much without the painkillers that there are sparks flickering across the vision of his remaining eye.

“You decided. I didn’t agree to anything,” he says, trying for nonchalant.

He can feel Batman cataloguing him, taking in the brace, the new mask- Nightwing took a leaf from Batgirl’s book there- how still he is when before he might have stood on his hands or walked the line of the roof because he could not contain himself.

“It isn’t safe for you to be out yet,” Batman growls. “You could get yourself killed because you couldn’t be patient and let yourself heal first.”

“Eyes don’t grow back,” Nightwing snaps. “And it’s not like all the tech we have can’t make up for it anyway.” The camera rigged up behind the left hand lens of his mask is working well enough to compensate for his limited sight, though the extended view projected for his remaining eye takes time to get used to.

“That isn’t the point,” Batman says, and it’s hard to interpret his expression. Bruce doesn’t show concern enough for it to be recognisable under the cowl.

“Then what is the point?” Nightwing asks. “That you don’t want me out here anymore? That I fucked up so badly it’d be better if I just hid from now on?”

He tugs on his full face mask, and nearly smiles, before he remembers that it makes people uncomfortable. Not that it would matter anyway. Batman can’t see him. “Don’t worry. I have that covered.”

“You know that isn’t it.”

“No, I’m just a mess,” Nightwing says, digging his fingers into the ridges of scar tissue, the wreck of his ear, all hidden by the mask. “Broken tools need fixing or retiring, right?”

“Nightwing.” There’s an inherent rebuke in how sharp Batman is. Nightwing just scowls, another mangled expression Batman can’t see.

"If you don’t like me saying it, stop treating me like it’s true," he hisses.

"You aren’t broken," Bruce says, reaching out to him, and Dick freezes because how many times has this happened to him in his career. He actually has to look at the hand on his shoulder, it’s so foreign a concept.

"You aren’t broken," Bruce repeats. Dick remains motionless, so caught up he doesn’t immediately register when Bruce moves again.

The gentle touch of the gauntlet against the left side of his face breaks his stillness. He flinches away from Bruce’s hand and retreats across the roof, forcing his leg to walk straight when all it wants to do is buckle.

Bruce looks stricken for the split second it takes for his mask to reassert itself. Another first.

“Don’t do that,” Nightwing says, though he knows he’s just confirming a lesson for Batman that he’s been trying to break him of for years, that touch is bad. He scrubs at the scar tissue, and wonders if Bruce would have cringed at the feel of it if Dick had given him the chance to. That was the normal reaction.

"Nightwing-"

Nightwing cuts him off before he can go further. He’d never have dared to before. “Just don’t do it.”

He drops off the roof before their farce of a conversation can go any further.

Batman doesn’t follow him.


End file.
